Eternal War

One thing George Orwell got right in 1984 was the future would include eternal war. Of course, in his imaginings, the war was between three great powers, but that's a detail. Now we have only one power with bases in countries beyond its shores, and that country, the United States of America, is committed to eternal war.

Because there are no other countries who will fight the capture the flag type war any more, we have had to create whatever war we can find, so we attack countries, invade them and then we have to engage in a guerrilla war, an asymmetric war, and nation building, two things we have discovered we cannot do successfully. 

No mater, we still got war, and that's what we need.

What we did not realize about Vietnam is that it was the first chapter of this new epoch of ongoing wars between the United States and all its firepower and technology and an occupied people, often living in another century (Afghanistan) or simply another frame of reference (Iraq, Libya, Syria) but whomever we decide to invade, we always say we are laying some freedom and the American way on them, which is supposed to be a good thing, as George Carlin said.

If you want to hear the opening of an epoch, listen to Lyndon Johnson speaking with his good buddy, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, as the President stumbles through the portal to this new American epoch of overseas adventures.

http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/clips/1964_0707_russell/

(Hightlight  above http address and chose go to http: etc)

You can be an eyewitness, or an ear-witness to history. 
It's really fascinating stuff.
I am trying to work my way through the Lyndon Johnson tapes.
It has given me a fuller picture of a man I loathed as a twenty-something. He was trying to get me killed in a rice paddy.
But he also got through the Voting Rights Act which lost the South for the Democratic Party--and he, the consummate politician wheeler dealer who supposedly cared for nothing but power and election results was willing to sacrifice Democratic Party hegemony for this cause. 
Johnson comes across as a sort of Mayor Carcetti--driven by ambition, but mindful of the little guy. He is, as David Webster would say, a conniving bastard, but he cared about the little guy--as long as the little guy wasn't a GI.